Mercy! Is n’t New York big? Worcester is nothing to it. Do you mean to tell me that you actually live in all that confusion? I don’t believe that I shall recover for months from the bewildering effect of two days of it. I can’t begin to tell you all the amazing things I ’ve seen; I suppose you know, though, since you live there yourself.
But are n’t the streets entertaining? And the people? And the shops? I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes.
Sallie and Julia and I went shopping together Saturday morning. Julia went into the very most gorgeous place I ever saw, white and gold walls and blue carpets and blue silk curtains and gilt chairs. A perfectly beautiful lady with yellow hair and a long black silk trailing gown came to meet us with a welcoming smile. I thought we were paying a social call, and started to shake hands, but it seems we were only buying hats—at least Julia was. She sat down in front of a mirror and tried on a dozen, each lovelier than the last, and bought the two loveliest of all.
I can’t imagine any joy in life greater than sitting down in front of a mirror and buying any hat you choose without having first to consider the price! There ’s no doubt about it, Daddy; New York would rapidly undermine this fine, stoical character which the John Grier Home so patiently built up.
And after we ’d finished our shopping, we met Master Jervie at Sherry’s. I suppose you ’ve been in Sherry’s? Picture that, then picture the dining-room of the John Grier Home with its oilcloth-covered tables, and white crockery that you can’t break, and wooden-handled knives and forks; and fancy the way I felt!
I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but the waiter very kindly gave me another so that nobody noticed.
And after luncheon we went to the theater—it was dazzling, marvelous, unbelievable—I dream about it every night.
Is n’t Shakespeare wonderful?
“Hamlet” is so much better on the stage than when we analyze it in class; I appreciated it before, but now, dear me!
I think, if you don’t mind, that I ’d rather be an actress than a writer. Would n’t you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school? And then I ’ll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose in your buttonhole, please, so I ’ll surely smile at the right man. It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out the wrong one.